How to create an online marketplace trootech

How to Create an Online Marketplace

How to Create an Online Marketplace MVP? – TrooTech

Have you seen the way eCommerce has progressed from being just another idea to a fully-grown commerce that people are looking at for purchasing essentials? You no longer really visit a store unless you truly need to. You have apps for everything-right from buying clothes to ordering food at home. You rely on the different websites or mobile apps for even the basic purchasing tasks, which has truly led to a revolution.

TRooTech Business Solution Australia Address: 07 Westburry Street, Balaclava, St. Kilda, Victoria, Melbourne 3182

How to Create an Online Marketplace

When you think from a business perspective, online marketplace is truly beneficial for your business. This is one of the most inexpensive ways to gather customers and actually monetize your business. A marketplace offers multiple brands, thus spoiling the customers with choices. Some of the renowned examples of marketplaces are Amazon, Ebay and Etsy. AirBnb has also joined them with its growing popularity and wide ranges of homestays. The reason for their growth is the offering, their attractiveness and the way they cater to the needs of the end customer.

If you are planning to launch a marketplace, the ideal way to do it would be to go for MVP (minimum viable product). This happens to be a costeffective way to test and launch your product, while making sure you can move ahead on the path to success. With this method, you can attract potential customers, and keep expanding your marketplace while gaining feedback from the early adopters.

Let’s say you have a business idea that you want to expand into a marketplace. But, you are not sure whether your idea will be a success or not. In that case, you should go ahead with MVP, and then expand your store. Here, we will take you through how to create a marketplace MVP for the start to validate your idea TRooTech Business Solution Australia Address: 07 Westburry Street, Balaclava, St. Kilda, Victoria, Melbourne 3182

How to Create an Online Marketplace

Creating the Online Marketplace The online marketplace does not acquire the required number of customers within a single day- creating the marketplace and generating awareness requires some time. You need to understand what your clients are looking for from the marketplace, before you can begin with your idea. This will help understand the gaps that you are required to fill up with your marketplace. If you believe that you need to validate your idea, you need to go ahead with MVP, which is much better than involving yourself with a complex store that nobody is going to visit. So, let’s get started with the features that your MVP should have.

Features in MVP It is always good to stay with the basics, when you are planning to establish

a

marketplace,

and

attract customers.

The

Responsive

Website Design store grabs more customers you are likely to have.

Right from navigation to usage, make sure your marketplace is easy and identifiable. To establish these points, you need to understand the user’s behaviour, and then work upon it when developing your marketplace.

TRooTech Business Solution Australia Address: 07 Westburry Street, Balaclava, St. Kilda, Victoria, Melbourne 3182

How to Create an Online Marketplace



Personal Profile: A profile is critical to a marketplace, which is why your MVP should include a simple yet necessary version of the user’s profile. This will give all the details of the customer, including the preferences, which is important to develop your marketplace further



Vendor Profile: The vendor is your true support, and you should have a complete idea of the product ranges they sell. A complete showcase of all the products is necessary at this point



Active History: Your MVP should allow the user’s a peek into their active history, as well as the products they viewed in the past. This might help in gaining conversions. For the vendor this will help track the activity of the user on the web page, and understand their interests and needs



Live Chat: Inclusion of live chat or other messaging systems can help the users interact with the store and get information on products that they are planning to buy but have doubts about. For the vendor, it is all about establishing trust and resolving all issues that can possibly occur



Search Functionality: With the search feature, your user can easily navigate through the website, while the vendor can search for products that were browsed by many for a longer period

TRooTech Business Solution Australia Address: 07 Westburry Street, Balaclava, St. Kilda, Victoria, Melbourne 3182

How to Create an Online Marketplace



Payment Systems: A secure payment system gives the customer a freehand to actually shop at your MVP, while the vendor can save time in managing the transactions and acquiring the receipts



Reports & Other Features: With the reports and other features related to back-office, you can understand what is actually happening at the frontend, and improve your store to cater to your end consumer’s needs

Additional Features to Add Later After you have thoroughly gauged your store, here are a few additional features that you can add later in the MVP. Here we have divided it into the features that are to be added for the users and the features that you should add for the vendors.

Features for the Users 

Product Comparison: This feature will help the end users compare the

different

products,

and make the final choice. A good

comparison system can give you the desired competitive edge

TRooTech Business Solution Australia Address: 07 Westburry Street, Balaclava, St. Kilda, Victoria, Melbourne 3182

How to Create an Online Marketplace



Social Sharing: You should allow your users to share the posts and other related links directly from your site for better engagement, and more awareness of your site



Wish List: Having a wish list, and adding products to can help customers remember what they need to buy, and can help you improve your conversions

Features for the Vendors 

B2B

Interface:

Improve

business

efficiency,

and

scale

your

marketplace to cater to the various needs by including a B2B interface for your vendors 

Reports & Forecasts: This helps keep a check on the inventory, and sales, and allows you to replenish stocks as and when necessary

Don’t forget to go mobile-first when you are catering to MVP marketplace.

With these features included, you are set to get started with your marketplace. Choose a platform that makes on-boarding easy, and your idea viable. Get started from TRooTech Business Solution, and keep incorporating feedback that will add value to your store.

TRooTech Business Solution Australia Address: 07 Westburry Street, Balaclava, St. Kilda, Victoria, Melbourne 3182